O'Donnell: I won't face the nation

Delaware Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell went on Fox News Channel Tuesday night, where she blamed the national media for interfering with her campaign and swore off any further interviews with news outlets outside her state.

Appearing on Sean Hannity's program for nearly 20 minutes, O'Donnell said she was taking the advice of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who frequently eschews mainstream news outlets in favor of Fox News, to keep the focus on First State voters for the remaining six-week homestretch to Election Day.

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"It's off the table because that's not going to help me get votes," the Republican candidate told Hannity. "I'm not going to do any more national media because this is my focus. Delaware's my focus and the local media's my focus and it's frustrating because I've let the local media know they're my priority but our phones are ringing off the hook that they can't get to me. It's actually become an interference with the campaign."

O'Donnell's pledge comes just three days after she abruptly canceled scheduled appearances on two Sunday morning talk shows to attend church services and picnics in her state.

On Sunday, Palin, who endorsed O'Donnell the weekend before the primary, offered the newly minted nominee some advice to avoid "appeasing" the national media "seeking your destruction."

O'Donnell explained she was doing Hannity's program because she was in New York City for "some business" and then heading immediately back to Delaware.

"Gov. Palin is right. That's a great piece of advice, and that's exactly what we're doing," she said. "It's interfering with my ability to campaign."

The former television commentator and tea party sensation has become a national phenomenon since upending nine-term Rep. Mike Castle in the GOP Senate primary one week ago.

Her newfound political stardom has helped her raise nearly $2 million since her defeat and turn the once-sleepy Delaware Senate contest into a nationally watched battle royal.

But it's also produced an uncomfortable situation in Delaware, where the state Republican party spent over a month discrediting her, peddling stories about her checkered financial history and misstatements she made about her personal and political record. A spokeswoman for Castle told POLITICO the day after the election that the congressman would not be endorsing O'Donnell, but O'Donnell revealed on "Hannity" that she spoke with her primary rival on Friday during an amicable phone call.

"He congratulated me. It was a very friendly conversation and I'm hoping to get his endorsement. It would mean a lot," she said.

When Hannity pressed her on the odds of Castle coming around to back his former foe, O'Donnell said she was "still holding out for hope."

"I want to give him the benefit of the doubt. It's only a week since Election Day. Let's give him some time and hopefully he'll come around because we need to unite the party, especially here in Delaware," she said. Asked if an endorsement was forthcoming, Castle spokeswoman Kate Dickens replied in an e-mail, "no."

O'Donnell also explained her now infamous statement in 1999 about experimenting in witchcraft as "teenage rebellion."

"Some people dabble in drugs to rebel, that's how I rebelled. Who didn't do some questionable things in high school and who doesn't regret the '80s to some extent? I certainly do," she said, noting she also wish she would have not made so many appearances on Bill Maher's "Politically Incorrect" program, where many of her most questionable statements have originated.